ark Twain, by the end of May, had made up his mind as to its
justice. When Theodore Stanton invited him to the Decoration Day banquet
to be held in Paris, he replied:

I thank you very much for your invitation and I would accept if I were
foot-free. For I should value the privilege of helping you do honor to
the men who rewelded our broken Union and consecrated their great work
with their lives; and also I should like to be there to do, homage to
our soldiers and sailors of today who are enlisted for another most
righteous war, and utter the hope that they may make short and decisive
work of it and leave Cuba free and fed when they face for home again.
And finally I should like to be present and see you interweave those two
flags which, more than any others, stand for freedom and progress in the
earth-flags which represent two kindred nations, each great and strong
by itself, competent sureties for the peace of the world when they stand
together.

That is to say, the flags of England and America. To an Austrian friend
he emphasized this thought:

The war has brought England and America close together--and to my mind
that is the biggest dividend that any war in this world has ever paid.
If this feeling is ever to grow cold again I do not wish to live to see
it.

And to Twichell, whose son David had enlisted:

You are living your war-days over again in Dave & it must be strong
pleasure mixed with a sauce of apprehension....

I have never enjoyed a war, even in history, as I am enjoying this
one, for this is the worthiest one that was ever fought, so far as my
knowledge goes. It is a worthy thing to fight for one's own country. It
is another sight finer to fight for another man's. And I think this is
the first time it has been done.

But it was a sad day for him when he found that the United States really
meant to annex the Philippines, and his indignation flamed up. He said:

"When the United States sent word to Spain that the Cuban atrocities
must end she occupied the highest moral position ever taken by a nation
since the Almighty made the earth. But when she snatched the Philippines
she stained the flag."

CCII. LITERARY WORK IN VIENNA

One must wonder, with all the social demands upon him, how Clemens could
find time to write as much as he did during those Vienna days. He piled
up a great heap of manuscript of every sort. He wrote Twichell:

There may be idle people in the world, but I am not on